TOLD SHE WAS HAVING A MISCARRIAGE, SHE CHOSE A C-SECTION – AND SAVED HER DAUGHTER’S LIFE
from: LiveAction News

(29 Dec.) A mom who went into premature labor at 23 weeks was told by doctors that she was experiencing a late miscarriage and that her baby would not survive. But today, that little girl just celebrated her first birthday thanks to a decision to do everything possible to save her life.

In December 2021, Lily and David Walker were excitedly celebrating their pregnancy, having undergone an ultrasound and discovering they were having a girl. They were discussing names, ultimately choosing Ava, and making plans when Lily Walker began bleeding on Boxing Day, December 26, 2021. She was just 23 weeks pregnant.

The couple rushed to the hospital, where Walker was at first told everything was likely fine, and that she was just spotting. Two days later, however, things got worse, and she rushed back to the hospital. "I got into hospital and I felt something go pop – I now know it was my waters," she said in an interview with the Mirror. "It had taken us three years to conceive, and we were obviously very nervous about the pregnancy. I had just started to relax after the scan, and then the unthinkable happened."

Doctors said there was nothing to be done, the baby would not survive, and Walker would need to deliver the body of her daughter. They were given no hope for a positive outcome.

"One consultant told me, ‘We just class this as a late miscarriage.’ I was stunned, devastated – the room was spinning," Walker continued. "She was my baby – we had already bonded and I already had that maternal instinct to protect her against all odds. I knew already that I would lay down my life for her even then. She went on to say that even in the unlikely event Ava did survive, she would be severely disabled."

The outlook was apparently so poor that the doctors didn’t even hook up any monitors to track Ava’s heartbeat. But then Walker found out there was another option: an emergency C-section. It could help save Ava’s life, but it was a significant risk for Walker. She didn’t hesitate to put her baby’s life above her own.

"I was told to continue with a natural labour even though it wasn’t progressing. The doctors explained that a caesarean section would give Ava the best chance, but because of the way my placenta was lying, I would have been at higher risk of haemorrhaging and needing a hysterectomy," she recalled. "The consultant said: ‘You might lose the chance to have another baby if you have a caesarean.’ But I didn’t want another baby – I already had one and she needed me, so I insisted on doing everything they could to save her."

Walker was put under general anesthesia for the C-section and woke up immediately concerned for her daughter. "I asked how my husband was, as he was obviously in bits the last time I had seen him, thinking he would lose both of us, and she said: ‘Aren’t you going to ask about yourself?'" Walker said. "But I knew I had a child to put first now."

Ava weighed one pound, four ounces at birth, and underwent numerous medical procedures. But she pulled through, and a year later, she’s finally home with her parents. [read more...]

COMMENTARY: It seems many doctors consider abortion to be the first option in a difficult pregnancy. Most people – including many Christians – prefer not to think about the gruesome reality of abortion: the willful murder of unborn babies, so they use euphemisms such as "fetus" or "the morning after pill." But putting it out of mind doesn't excuse us from facing the reality! "Rescue those who are being led away to death! Indeed, hold back those who are staggering to the slaughter! If you say, 'Behold, we didn't know this'; Doesn't he who weighs the hearts consider it? He who keeps your soul, doesn't he know it? Shall he not render to every man according to his work?" (Proverbs 24:11-12).

THE WORLD'S MOST EXPENSIVE DRUG IS A CURE FOR HAEMOPHILIA
from: BioEdge.org

(29 Nov.) The US Food and Drug Administration has approved the world’s most expensive drug. Per dose, Hemgenix will cost US$3.5 million.

A gene therapy drug, Hemgenix appears to cure, at least temporarily, Haemophilia B, a genetic bleeding disorder resulting from missing or insufficient levels of blood clotting Factor IX, a protein needed to produce blood clots to stop bleeding.

Patients with severe Haemophilia B typically require a routine treatment regimen of intravenous (IV) infusions of Factor IX replacement products to maintain sufficient levels of clotting factor to prevent bleeding episodes.

Hemgenix is a one-time gene therapy product given as a single dose by IV infusion. It consists of a viral vector carrying a gene for clotting Factor IX. The gene is expressed in the liver to produce Factor IX protein, to increase blood levels of Factor IX and thereby limit bleeding episodes.

"Gene therapy for haemophilia has been on the horizon for more than two decades. Despite advancements in the treatment of haemophilia, the prevention and treatment of bleeding episodes can adversely impact individuals’ quality of life," said Peter Marks, of the FDA’s Center for Biologics Evaluation and Research.

Expensive? Yes – the most expensive drug ever produced. But according to the Institute for Clinical and Economic Review, a non-profit that reviews drug pricing, it is value for money. Routine infusions with Factor IX are also expensive. The hope is that a single treatment will actually cure the disease.

Hemgenix, or etranacogene dezaparvovec, is manufactured by CSL Behring. [read more...]

COMMENTARY: I certainly hope the price of this drug comes down! The ethical question concerning it is – "How many more lives could be saved with this $3.5 million?" We don't live in an ideal world of unlimited resources: the amount of money available for medical care, whether public or private, is finite. Will this new drug be reserved for only the wealthy or politically powerful?

RUSSIA: REFUSING TO "CARRY OUT ORDERS AIMED AT DESTRUCTION AND UTTER DEFEAT OF LIVING PEOPLE"
from: Forum 18 News Service

Hebrews 13:3 – "Remember those who are in bonds, as bound with them; and those who are ill-treated, since you are also in the body."

(20 Dec.) A Leningrad Region court upheld Pavel Mushumansky's request to have his mobilisation order cancelled. He had stated in his application for alternative service that based on his Christian beliefs he could not "carry out orders aimed at the destruction and utter defeat of living people." Once the decision enters legal force, he should be able to return home from his military base.

A Russian Protestant who sought to do alternative civilian service has succeeded in having his military mobilization order declared illegal in court. While his lawyers have welcomed this decision as a "real act of justice," the situation for conscientious objectors – religious and otherwise – remains murky during Russia's "partial mobilization," which President Vladimir Putin has still not formally ended by decree.

In the absence of any clear legal mechanism for requesting alternative civilian service (ACS) under conditions of mobilization, the fate of men who object to using weapons or serving in the armed forces depends on individual recruitment offices or on the courts.

On 30 November, a Leningrad Region court upheld Pavel Mushumansky's request to have his mobilization order cancelled. Once the decision enters legal force, he should be able to return home from his military base.

Mushumansky, who stated in his application for alternative service that on the basis of his Christian beliefs he could not "carry out orders aimed at the destruction and utter defeat of living people," had already completed ACS as a conscript. Some other mobilized men who have requested (and been denied) ACS carried out military service as conscripts; both forms of service place a person in the reserve upon completion, rendering them liable to call-up in the future.

The fact that Mushumansky undertook alternative civilian service as a conscript was "important, even if not key" to his case, his lawyer Aleksandr Peredruk told Forum 18. "However, the freedom of conscience and religion, as well as the related right to ACS, cannot be limited only to those who have previously completed ACS – the question of exemption from military service of citizens whose beliefs oppose such service should be resolved in each specific case."

Among other ACS cases known to Forum 18 are those of Kirill Berezin, an Orthodox Christian who was ultimately allowed a non-combat role in a Russia-based unit, and Dmitry Zlakazov, another Protestant who also lost his lawsuit against the military authorities and whose whereabouts are now unclear.

Forum 18 sent enquiries to the Defence Ministry's Information Department and the Western Military District, asking why military recruitment offices were denying requests for alternative civilian service when the Constitution guaranteed this right to all citizens. Forum 18 also asked whether mobilized conscientious objectors would be allowed to serve in unarmed roles. Forum 18 received no reply by the end of the working day of 20 December. [read more...]

COMMENTARY: We thank the Lord for Pavel Mushumansky's having his mobilisation order cancelled. As a Christian, he could not in good conscience aid in the killing of innocent civilians. But other stories in the news tell us that many Russian soldiers who are professing Christians have been killing civilian Ukrainians or have themselves been killed. Pray for a spiritual awakening in Russia!

SCHOOL DISTRICT SETTLES WITH TEACHER WHO TOLD REPORTER ABOUT UNMET IEPS
from: Disability Scoop

(16 Dec.) ST. PAUL, Minn. – When special education teacher Rachel Wannarka spoke to a reporter in 2018 about required services she said St. Paul Public Schools wasn't providing her students, she hoped it would serve as a call to action.

"I was just trying to help," she said. "We were hoping that they would give the students with disabilities what their IEPs said they were supposed to get."

Instead, the third-year teacher said, her principal yelled at her and called her "untrustworthy." And, after two poor performance evaluations, she was denied tenure and involuntarily transferred to another school. Wannarka instead quit her job just before the 2018-19 school year and filed a complaint with the Minnesota Department of Human Rights.

Following an investigation, the department determined in January there was probable cause to find that the school district retaliated against Wannarka, in violation of the state's Human Rights Act. To settle the case, the school board this month approved a $120,000 payout: $74,400 for Wannarka and $45,600 for her attorney, Ashwin Madia.

"The discrimination I talked to the reporter about in the first place was so upsetting … and then the retaliation that came after that was so severe and so painful, it was the most traumatic professional experience of my life," Wannarka said in an interview.

Now working for the Minnesota Department of Education, Wannarka said she agreed to the settlement in order to move on. "This wrecked us in so many ways. I couldn't imagine another two years of this," she said.

According to a redacted settlement agreement provided by the district, "SPPS denies that it (redacted) unlawfully harmed Wannarka in any way." It says the district reached the settlement "to avoid the considerable expense and burdens associated with litigation."

City Pages article

Wannarka is one of several teachers from multiple schools who spoke to a City Pages reporter for the 2018 article, but she was the only one who agreed to be named.

In the article, Wannarka claimed that dozens of her students at Humboldt High School had individualized education programs (IEPs) that called for more time with instructional aides than the district was providing. As a consequence, those students with disabilities were failing math in mainstream classes and being transferred to special education classes taught at lower levels, she said.

In a statement provided to City Pages at the time, a district spokeswoman suggested the problem was a shortage of teaching assistants. However, Wannarka reently said the statement missed the mark, as all of Humboldt's teaching assistant jobs were filled at the time; the district simply wasn't budgeting enough aide positions to cover what students' plans required.

The article was published Feb. 13, 2018 under the headline "Teachers: St. Paul schools are violating federal law with special ed kids." The next day, Humboldt Principal Mike Sodomka observed Wannarka's classroom for a previously scheduled performance review.

"After the students left, he yelled at me, told me I was ‘untrustworthy,' and told me he had directed building administrators to stop sharing information with me," Wannarka wrote in her resignation letter later that year.

Sodomka's response surprised Wannarka as he had previously encouraged her to "go public" with her concerns that the district wasn't providing enough special education paraprofessionals, she wrote.

Poor performance

In Wannarka's first two years with the district, two other principals had rated her "proficient" on all six performance reviews.

Sodomka rated her "developing" on all three reviews in 2017-18. Although one of those was conducted before the City Pages article was published, her last two evaluations at Humboldt were much worse than the first: Out of 106 categories, she was rated "below standard" in five areas before the article and 29 areas after it; she was rated "proficient" in 71 areas before and 26 after.

"It is difficult to imagine how (Wannarka's) performance could have changed so fundamentally within a two-month period," Human Rights Commissioner Rebecca Lucero wrote in a probable cause finding.

According to reports from the human rights department, the district said Wannarka agreed she performed poorly during the Feb. 14 classroom observation. However, Lucero concluded there was "compelling evidence of reprisal" and "no evidence to explain why the review is so much lower."

Sodomka, now an assistant principal at another district school, said by email that he feels "the performance evaluation was accurate," but declined further comment. [read more...]

COMMENTARY: Having a relative with special needs, we know personally how hard it is for parents to insure that their special needs children receive the special instruction called for in their IEPs. In our relative's case, it was even difficult to get the school administration to even write up an IEP for him. It seems the law exists in order to be broken!

MINISTRY OF CULTURE AND INFO POLICY RECOMMENDED NOT EXTENDING LEASE OF TWO CHURCHES IN LAVRA WITH UOC-MP – TKACHENKO
from: Religious Information Service of Ukraine

(27 Dec.) The Ministry of Culture and Information Policy will recommend that the Lavra nature reserve not renew the agreement with the UOC-MP for the lease of the Holy Assumption Cathedral and the Refectory Church in the Upper Lavra. This was announced by the head of the Ministry of Culture and Information Policy, Oleksandr Tkachenko on the air of the telethon "United news," reports Ukrinform.

"The agreement on the lease of the assumption and refectory churches in the upper Lavra is coming to a close. Accordingly, we were contacted by the director of the Lavra Reserve for information on this issue. In compliance with the presidential decree on checking the state of use of the Lavra's property, we will recommend that such an agreement not be extended," the minister said.

Tkachenko noted that until the verification of the use of the upper Lavra property by the newly created interdepartmental government commission is completed, services will not be held on these premises. He stressed that regarding other property there are ongoing transactions that will continue until such an audit is completed.

He noted that the legality of the Lower Lavra use by the UOC-MP will also be verified. The checks' results will determine the monastery complex's future fate.

"In 2013, an indefinite agreement was signed for the use of the Lower Lavra of the UOC-MP. Since there is now a decree and an interdepartmental commission, we will have to check the legality of the church's use of property, and take this into account, make a decision," the minister said.

As reported, from January 1, representatives of the UOC-MP will lose the right to hold services on the territory of the upper Lavra in the Holy Assumption and Refectory Cathedrals. In this regard, the Vicar of the Holy Dormition Kyiv-Pechersk Lavra, Metropolitan Pavel Lebid, appealed to the president of Ukraine, Volodymyr Zelensky, with a request not to take these churches. [read source...]

COMMENTARY: In a related RISU article THE COURT RECOGNIZES THE LAW OF UKRAINE ON RENAMING THE UOC-MP AS COMPLIANT WITH THE CONSTITUTION, Ukraine is about to force the Moscow Patriarchate's churches in Ukraine to indicate in their legal name and on public displays the full legal name of the foreign church body that controls them. These articles show that Ukraine is finally beginning to strictly limit the activities of Moscow's fifth-column churches in Ukraine.

THE RUSSIAN ORTHODOX CHURCH AND UKRAINE: PUTIN USES THE BAPTISM OF RUS' AS A FALSE PRETEXT FOR RUSSIAN IMPERIALISM
from: Orthodox Christian Laity

This most insightful article below was written in January this year, more than one month before Vladimir the Third-Greatest started his failed full-scale invasion of Ukraine with the blessing of Supreme-Patriarch Kirill. However, the aforementioned Vladimir was bumped down a notch to Fourth-Greatest by Volodymyr the Second-Greatest.

(22 Jan. 2022) While Vladimir Putin is determined to reconstitute the old Soviet Union as a sphere of unchallenged Russian influence, Russian imperialism has a history that long antedates Mr. Putin. Czarist Russia was an expansive imperial power, extending its hegemony over the Eurasian landmass to the Pacific Ocean. Lenin, Stalin and their epigones, despite their ideological rejection of czarism, acted as de facto Great Russian imperialists in assembling the Soviet Union and maintaining it by brute force. In lamenting the demise of that prison house of nations as the greatest geopolitical disaster of the 20th century, Mr. Putin was in part mourning the failure of the imperial project begun by Peter the Great. Yet Russian imperialism has even deeper cultural roots that influence Mr. Putin's assault on Ukrainian sovereignty today.

The crucial moment in the lengthy process of the Christianization of the eastern Slavic peoples was the Baptism of Rus' in 988. Then, the baptized Kyivan Prince Vladimir returned to his capital after a military victory in Crimea and urged his people to follow his example by being baptized en masse in the Dnieper River. They did, and others in the region followed. More than a millennium later, the meaning of the Baptism of Rus' for Christianity in that part of the world remains sharply contested—and relevant to contemporary geopolitics. The Russian Orthodox Church's insistence on being the sole heir of the Baptism of Rus' is an integral part of the longstanding Russian claim, now deployed by Mr. Putin, that Ukraine is not a real nation with its own culture and history. At best, Ukraine is a "little brother" to the Russian hegemon. Yet the various Ukrainian Orthodox Churches and the Ukrainian Greek Catholic Church have claims to the heritage of 988 at least as strong as the Russians'. The Baptism of Rus', after all, took place in Kyiv and its environs when Moscow was a thick forest inhabited by wolves and bears.

While the ethnographic, cultural and ecclesiastical history that unfolded between 988 and today is complex, one modern incident illustrates the nexus of Russian imperialism, Soviet power, the Russian Church's proprietary claim to the Baptism of Rus' and Mr. Putin's Ukraine policy.

During Hitler's onslaught on the Soviet Union, Stalin cynically decided that Russian Orthodoxy, whose clergy he had killed in the tens of thousands, could be a useful tool in the "Great Patriotic War" against his erstwhile German allies. Stalin restored the Orthodox patriarchate of Moscow, and the Russian church gave legitimacy to the Soviet regime by blessing sacrifices of life, liberty and treasure on behalf of the Motherland. The imperial instinct remained, however, as did the state-controlled Russian church's determination to own and control the heritage of 988.

Thus in 1946, Russian Orthodoxy's leadership, working with the Soviet secret police, the NKVD, engineered a contrived Sobor, or church council, to liquidate the Ukrainian Greek Catholic Church, which had become a safe-deposit box of Ukrainian cultural identity and national aspiration.

The previous year, the Ukrainian church's leadership had been arrested. Those who weren't murdered were condemned to Gulag camps. The coerced "council," virtually at gunpoint, acquiesced to an ecclesiastical variation on classic imperialism, as the Russian Orthodox Church absorbed the Ukrainian Greek Catholic Church, which ceased to exist legally. That dissidents among the Ukrainian clergy and faithful, without parish churches or other institutions, maintained the world's largest underground religious community for the next 45 years was little less than miraculous. Today, the Ukrainian Greek Catholic Church is playing a significant role in building a religiously tolerant, democratic Ukraine.

It might have been hoped that a post-Soviet Russian Orthodox Church would similarly disentangle itself from state power and help rebuild a civil society morally shattered by communism, but Patriarch Kirill of Moscow has done the opposite. The patriarch, whose early career path suggests collaboration with the KGB, has linked the Moscow patriarchate ever more closely to the Kremlin. This includes endorsing Mr. Putin's absurd claims to be a defender of Christian civilization and underwriting the Putin policy of rebuilding Russian hegemony in the former Soviet space, now styled the Russkiy mir ("Russian world").

If, as Patriarch Kirill and other Russian churchmen insist, Russian Orthodoxy holds a monopoly on the heritage of the Baptism of Rus', then Ukraine is and must be part of the Russkiy mir. So there will be no pushback on Russian aggression in Ukraine from Patriarch Kirill who, at Mr. Putin's 2012 inauguration, declared God to be the divine source of the president's power and described Russian Orthodoxy as both guarantor and pastor of Mr. Putin's personal autocracy.

For a Christian communion with the rich spiritual and theological resources of Russian Orthodoxy to legitimize tyranny and aggression is tragic. That, sadly, is the logic of the distorted history of the baptism of the eastern Slavs perpetrated by too many Russian Orthodox leaders.

Mr. Weigel is a distinguished senior fellow at Washington's Ethics and Public Policy Center. [read source...]

COMMENTARY: The author of this article did not hide behind the excuse "I don't want to think about the likelihood of Russia invading Ukraine." A month after he wrote this, Russia's full-scale invasion took place. But how many of us today would rather not watch or read the news about Ukraine? Ignoring it doesn't make it go away. We all have the responsiblity to do what we can to protect innocent human lives.

(← click) In the article "Israel and the Church – What's the Relationship?" we read of several different views on this important topic. Does the Church replace Israel as the heir of God's covenant? That's "Replacement Theology." Or do Israel and the Church refer to separate groups of people? That's "Separation Theology." Or do Israel and the Church overlap in some manner? That's "Remnant Theology."

A recent post on my social media said – "The Orthodox Church is the true Israel - Paisios." This "Replacement Theology" is the viewpoint of many Orthodox Christians; in fact, I've heard it stated quite forcefully in church by an Arabic Christian guest speaker. But this reflects the dislike of Arabs for the Jews. And it's not only the default Orthodox viewpoint, it's also the view of many Catholics and Protestants. So, what is the correct view on this touchy issue?

The first two above options – "Replacement Theology" and "Separation Theology" – are too simple-minded. They both illustrate dualistic thinking: it is a simple "either-or" decision. That type of thinking, however, is lazy logic. It's more difficult to think up a "some-of-this-and-some-of-that" type of solution: ask any computer programmer how hard it is to code such an "if-and/or-if-and/or-if-and/or" decision tree! Remnant Theology is this type of complex answer.

I've come across some rather virulent antisemitic posts by so-called Christians on social media lately, so I decided to write an answer: https://Agape-Biblia.org/Good-News-Jewish-mouse.htm – "How the Jewish mouse ate the Greco-Roman elephant." Here it is:

Did the Greco-Roman Empire assimilate the Jewish nation and hellenize this new faith in Yeshua? Or instead, did this new version of the Jewish religion adopt and assimilate the Greco-Roman Empire? Here's how the Jewish mouse ate the Greco-Roman elephant: one bite at a time, one martyr – or hundreds – at a time, over a period of three hundred years, until which time what we now call "Christianity" was considered a Jewish sect. Yeshua was a Jew who came as the fulfillment of the Jewish Bible's prophecies about the Jewish Messiah, the Annointed One. All twelve Disciples and the Apostle Paul were Jewish, and many thousands of Jews were converted in the book of Acts to believe in him as their Messiah. For almost 400 years after the Messiah's birth, the Jewish Bible – what we now call the "Old Testament" – was the only Bible that believers in the Messiah, the Khristos, knew. It had been translated into Greek (the Septuagint) about 200 years before His birth, making those prophecies available to the Greek-speaking world.

As the Apostle Paul wrote in Romans 1:16 – "For I am not ashamed of the gospel of the Anointed One [the Khristos], for it is the power of God for salvation for everyone who believes; for the Jew first, and also for the Greek." In Romans 10:1 he wrote – "Brothers, my heart's desire and my prayer to God is for Israel, that they may be saved." Also in Romans 10:1-2a he wrote – "I ask then, Has God rejected his people? May it never be! For I also am an Israelite, a descendant of Abraham, of the tribe of Benjamin. God has not rejected his people, which he foreknew."

And as Paul wrote to Gentile converts: "So the [Jewish] law has become our tutor to bring us to the Khristos, the Anointed One, that we might be justified by faith. ...For as many of you as were baptized into Khristos have put on Khristos. There is neither Jew nor Greek, there is neither slave nor free man, there is neither male nor female; for you are all one in Yesous Khristos, the Anointed One. If you belong to Khristos, then you are Abraham's seed and heirs according to promise, ...so that He might redeem those who were under the law, that we might receive the adoption of sons" (Gal. 3:27-29; 4:5).

Bear in mind that "Yesous, the Khristos, the Anointed One" is simply "Yeshua, the Messiah" translated into Greek. We, believing Gentiles ("Greeks"), are now adopted Jews, children of Abraham! And when Emperor Constantine the Great accepted this new faith, he said – "You have conquered, O Galilean!" See the Introduction of https://Agape-Biblia.org/First-Century-View.htm and https://Agape-Biblia.org/First-Century-View-Augustine.htm for more details on the thorny issue of being "the chosen" or "the elect" – ethnic superiority, both Jewish and anti-Semitic.

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